Our Leadership

Steve Powless serves as chairman and CEO of CSI, providing strategic vision and leadership for the company. In his role, Steve sets the company’s focus on the intersection of financial technology and service excellence, and ensures CSI is delivering value to both customers and shareholders. During his more than 30-year career with CSI, he has held such leadership positions as vice president of corporate development, executive vice president, president and chief operating officer. He has also served as a member of the CSI Board of Directors since 1992. Steve was named CEO in 1999, only the second person in the company’s history to hold the position. He was then elected CSI board chairman in 2017.

In addition to his leadership at CSI, Steve has served the fintech industry in various leadership roles, including as past president and director of the Association for Financial Technology (AFT). Steve earned a Bachelor of Science in Business from Murray State University where he also received the Distinguished Alumni Award. He is a current director and past chairman of the Baptist Health Paducah Administrative Board of Directors and serves as chair of the Lifeline Recovery Center board.

David Culbertson serves as a board member and CSI’s president and chief operating officer, a role in which he leads the strategic direction for the company’s portfolio of technology and financial services solutions, regulatory compliance, administration, sales and customer service. David works across the organization to build upon CSI’s service-centric reputation by further enhancing the seamless delivery of CSI’s products and services to its customers, while also creating operational efficiencies across the company’s suite of fintech and regtech solutions.

David began his CSI career in 1989. Since then, he has held numerous leadership positions, including vice president of research and business development and group president of technology services. David has served his community on various boards and currently serves on The Carson Center for The Performing Arts and Kentucky Regional Board for Mercy Health. He is also a past president of the Association for Financial Technology (AFT). David earned a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from the University of Virginia and is a graduate of the Wharton School Executive Education program.

Brian Brown serves as chief financial officer for CSI. With more than 15 years of experience in corporate finance, Brian provides leadership for CSI’s financial reporting, accounting, tax, budgeting, planning and analysis, treasury management and investor relations. For the past seven years, he has held various leadership roles within CSI’s corporate finance team, including senior vice president of finance, vice president of finance and director of financial planning and analysis. Brian brings a depth of expertise to his position, having consistently contributed to CSI’s financial and strategic planning processes, investor relations activities and financial reporting.

Prior to joining CSI, Brian held leadership positions with JMP Coal Holdings, LLC; FCB Services, Inc. (a subsidiary of Farmers Capital Bank Corp) and the Kentucky Department of Financial Institutions. Brian earned a Master of Science in Finance from Indiana University Kelley School of Business, a Master of Business Administration from University of Kentucky Gatton College of Business and Economics and a Bachelor of Arts in Finance and Economics from Transylvania University.

Kurt Guenther serves as group president for CSI Business Solutions. In his role, he provides strategic leadership for CSI’s document delivery, managed services and regulatory compliance solutions. Kurt focuses on guiding product strategy, enhancing the customer experience and driving both new sales and cross-sales for CSI’s business solutions.

Prior to joining CSI in early 2019, he served as the head of U.S. Banking and Capital Markets for SAP. In addition to his leadership role at SAP, Kurt has served in various senior leadership positions within the fintech industry. He attended Arizona State University and is an active member, former board member and past president of the Association for Financial Technology (AFT).

Giovanni Mastronardi is CSI’s group president for Enterprise Banking. In this role, he is responsible for leading CSI’s sales efforts, product development, implementation services and customer support. Prior to becoming group president, Gio served as chief sales officer with CSI, a role in which he led the nationwide sales and sales support organization in achievement of key growth metrics.

Gio holds more than 20 years’ experience working with online platforms, including mobile and Internet banking, as well as electronic payment channels. He also has 10 years of direct banking experience and earned a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from San Diego State University.

Diva Narayanan serves as CSI’s chief technology officer. In his role, Diva leads the efforts of CSI’s software engineering group, infrastructure management group and host/remote operations team. With nearly 35 years of experience at CSI, he has provided leadership for the development of numerous financial services technology platforms, and he possesses in-depth expertise when it comes to the company’s technical architecture.

Before his role as CTO, Diva also worked in operations, as a software developer and as vice president of software engineering at CSI. Diva began his career at CSI just after earning a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Southern Illinois University.

Paul Koziarz serves as CSI’s chief development officer. In this role, he leads the company’s focus on strategic acquisitions and partnerships. He has spent more than 25 years in the financial services industry. He was president of Financial Technology, Inc. (FTI), a Chicago-based company that provided financial management and decision support systems to more than 2,000 banks worldwide. He was also a vice president with HNC Software Inc. in San Diego, where he focused on growing the community bank business segment for its profitability and analytics solutions. Paul earned a Bachelor of Science in Finance and a Master of Business Administration from Southern Illinois University.

Charmaine Smith serves as CSI’s Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO). In this role, she acts as a steward of CSI’s Best Place to Work culture, while providing the best employee experience and strategically aligning Human Resources to business needs.  Prior to joining CSI, Charmaine was the vice president of human resources at Samsung Austin Semiconductor. She has worked in the high-tech industry for more than 23 years, completing over 280 mergers and acquisitions and building the largest fabrication plant at its time. Charmaine earned a Bachelor of Science from Eastern Michigan University.

Jennifer Werner serves as CSI’s chief marketing officer, a role in which she leads brand development, marketing strategy and public relations initiatives. Jennifer has nearly 25 years of experience in conceiving, developing, implementing and driving B2B and B2C marketing strategies within financial services, payments and healthcare industries. She has a demonstrated history of building and managing large-scale marketing initiatives within fast-paced, entrepreneurial organizations. Jennifer earned a degree in organizational communications with a focus on marketing from Lipscomb University.

Bob Ezell serves as chief customer experience officer for CSI. In his role, Bob oversees all facets of the customer experience, including relationship management, customer service and education services, for CSI’s Enterprise Banking group. He has more than three decades of experience working closely with financial institution executives on adopting innovative technologies that enhance customer engagement and improve operational performance.

During his career, he also has held positions in account management and product management, which allows him to specialize in integrating the user experience into new platforms and helping banks leverage technology to its fullest. Bob is a past director and president of the Association for Financial Technology (AFT) and has served on various product advisory boards for fintech companies as well as the board for the Paducah Area Chamber of Commerce. Bob earned a Bachelor of Science and a Master of Business Administration from Murray State University.

Patrick MacCartney is CSI’s chief data officer. In this role, Patrick is responsible for keeping the business aligned to strategic goals and improving business performance. He leads CSI’s business intelligence group and corporate administration group. The business intelligence group focuses on the best use of internal information systems by developing tools and processes to improve staff productivity to serve our customers, develops reporting and analysis to support our business and oversees business development to execute on our organic growth opportunities. The corporate administration group team is responsible for contract administration, communicating policy and procedures and several other corporate administrative duties.

Patrick has more than 20 years of experience working with financial institutions and has held a variety of leadership positions with CSI. Patrick earned a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from Indiana University and a Master of Business Administration in Strategic Business Management from Indiana Wesleyan University.

Keith Monson serves as CSI’s chief risk officer. In this role, Keith maintains an enterprise-wide compliance framework for risk assessment and reporting, as well as other key components of CSI’s corporate compliance program. With over 30 years of experience, he frequently speaks nationally on a variety of compliance related issues. He has served as a chief compliance officer for a range of financial institutions, and his background includes assisting financial institutions as a compliance consultant and a chief risk officer. Keith served as a director for the Missouri Bankers Association, where he was the Chairman of the Regulatory Affairs Committee and Chairman of the Compliance Committee. Keith also served as a Chairman of the CRCM Advisory Board and was a former member of the Certification Council for the Institute of Certified Bankers. More recently, he co-chaired the Enterprise Risk Management Working Group, wrote for and served as the Chairman of the Editorial Advisory Board and participated in the Compliance Executive Committee and the Regulatory Compliance Conference Advisory Committee for the American Bankers Association.

Keith received the 2009 Distinguished Service Award from the ABA Compliance Administrative Committee for his work in the compliance field. He uses his storied background to support financial institutions with the design and continued enhancement of core compliance practices. Mr. Monson earned a Bachelor of Science in Finance from Truman State University.

Tammy Souder serves as CSI’s chief administrative officer and is responsible for enterprise banking contract administration, accounts receivable coordination, shareholder coordination, maintaining Policy & Procedure updates for the company and several other corporate administrative duties. A CSI employee since June 1992, Tammy Souder was named corporate secretary in 1998 and vice president of corporate administration in July 2005. Tammy earned an Associate degree in Business Management from Paducah Community College.